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Because I Hate Korea

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Because I Hate Korea Volume 16 | Issue 11 | Number 4 | Article ID 5152 | Jun 01, 2018 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Because I Hate Korea Chang Kang-Myoung translation by Stephen J. Epstein and Mi Young Kim with an introduction by Stephen J. Epstein Abstract: Chang Kang-myoung’s provocatively also subject to ongoing fluctuations, had titled novel Because I Hate Korea (Han’gugi reached its highest level in seven years by the sireoseo) became a best-seller in 2015 and end of 2017. It has thus been tempting, even is among the most notable literary works to amidst the precariousness caused by the address rampant dissatisfaction amongvolatile standoff between North Korea and the South Korean millennials. In recent years, Trump administration, to see improvements in Chang, a former journalist (b. 1975), has the collective national mood of South Korea, a developed a reputation for adroit and prolific country that has languished in palpable malaise fictionalized expressions of local discontent. in recent years, especially after the sinking of Because I Hate Korea reflects a pervasive the Sewol ferry. Nonetheless, intractable desire on the part of the nation’s younger problems of social and economic structure people to escape from “Hell Joseon,” a coinage remain and are keenly felt, above all by the that has attained widespread circulation. This nation’s youth: the unemployment rate for piece briefly introduces the novel, setting it those aged 15-29 stood at a record annual high within its wider contemporary context, and in 2017. If one includes the so-called then provides a translation of the first chapter. “sentiment unemployment rate,” that also takes into account those who have stopped the job search out of discouragement, those who only find part-time work, and those who have Key words: South Korea, Hell Joseon, Chang graduated from university and are awaiting the Kang-myoung, Korean fiction proper moment to go on the job market,the figure reached almost 23% last year. Introduction Below is a translation by myself and Mi Young Kim of the first chapter of Chang Kang- Over the last year, many South Koreans have myoung’s provocatively titled novel Because I taken heart from resilient democraticHate Korea (Han’gugi sireoseo), one of the institutions that overcame the nation’smost notable literary works to address rampant protracted political crisis and confirmed the dissatisfaction among Korean millennials. In impeachment of the authoritarian, aloof, and recent years, Chang, a former journalist (b. corrupt Park Geun-hye. Her successor Moon 1975), has developed a reputation for adroit Jae-in has maintained impressive approval and prolific fictionalized expressions of local ratings throughout the first year of hisdiscontent. Because I Hate Korea became a presidency: despite occasional small dips, after best-seller in the country in 2015 and reflects a his successful April summit meeting with North pervasive desire on the part of the nation’s Korean leader Kim Jong Un, he was enjoying younger people to escape from “Hell Joseon,” a his highest ever levels of support. Similarly, coinage that has attained widespread Korea’s consumer confidence index, though circulation. Se-woong Koo neatly summarizes 1 16 | 11 | 4 APJ | JF salient features of this grim contemporary to leave.2 equivalent of the feudal Joseon Dynasty: “having to sacrifice youth for interminable Chang’s debut novel The Bleached (Pyobaek), education, the state and a job one does not for which he won the Hankyoreh Literary believe in; a narrow path to financial security Award in 2011, had accused South Korean and an even more narrowly defined path to society of forsaking its younger members and success; growing inequality and hereditary making suicide an option that is considered privileges of the haves; lack of social welfare seriously by far too many. Early on in that text that might cushion the fall to poverty; and elite Chang presents a lengthy list of neologisms corruption.”1 The term Hell Joseon has also applied to the current generation that use been accompanied by the rise of such memes single letters from the Roman alphabet, à la as the “spoon theory” that regards social status Generation X and Y, and characterize them by in contemporary Korea as inherited. The notion the challenging environment they face. Most that, for example, a “dirt spoon” (heulksujeo) damning and widespread is a meme that can never become a “gold spoon” (geumsujeo) depicts South Korea’s current youth as part of emphasizes a widespread belief thatthe N-po sedae (“the generation of giving up N- opportunities for mobility have been closed off. items,”) where N is commonly 3, 5, or 7, and the items that must be discarded include such Gye-na, the protagonist ofBecause I Hate fundamental human desires as dating, marriage Korea, is a young woman who rejects the land and children. Chang takes a considered of her birth and moves to Australia to seek the approach in addressing the complex issues that happiness that has eluded her. Her frustrations have brought about such a state. exemplify the anxieties of life in a nation where neoliberal transformations have intersected in pernicious ways with a traditionally competitive mindset. Gye-na’s account critiques a dehumanizing corporate culture that has made Chang Kang-myoung appears as a it impossible for her to find fulfilment or spokesperson for young Koreans ca. economic security. Degrading work as a cog in 15:40. a corporate machine foists indignities upon her and the customers for whom she approves credit card purchases under a set of arbitrary Chang’s 2015 novella Fired (Albasaeng jareugi) guidelines. An inability to achieve a satisfying dwells on the uncomfortable conflict between a work/life balance, poor working conditions (and part-time worker who fights back against what even worse commuting conditions), and she perceives as unfair dismissal by the concerns about life after retirement all push supervisor through whose eyes readers view Gye-na to dream of life elsewhere. The success the situation. Fired shares features with of Because I Hate Korea strongly suggests that Because I Hate Korea in presenting a young the protagonist’s choice to pull up stakes female character unable to adapt to a resonated with a broad swath of the reading demoralizing contemporary work environment. public, as emigration or long-term travel has In the latter text, Chang extends readers’ become a coping mechanism: a recent survey ability to sympathize with subordinate workers from an employment portal shows that among by making Gye-na a protagonist who speaks in job seekers in their twenties as many as four- a first-person voice that renders her a vivid and fifths of those would move away from Korea if compelling representative of unhappy young given the opportunity; almost half of those Koreans; we become confidantes who hear Gye- surveyed said they were already making plans na’s story directly. 2 16 | 11 | 4 APJ | JF At a company dinner early in the novel, Gye-na, than elsewhere. Similar issues facing youth can who has dreamed of retiring to provincial Jeju be found elsewhere in East Asia, including Island as an escape from Seoul, experiences an wealthy Singapore.4 The problem, however, is epiphany and realizes that if she is so unhappy that happiness is a subjective state; Gye-na’s in Korea she can move elsewhere. She notes a narrative offers a useful window into personally collective sense of being trapped and links her felt experience. In Chang’s framing, the lack of reflections to the cheery lyrics of the song value that Korean society places on those who “Bingo” (Bing’go) by the group Turtles. For do not succeed in rigidly prescribed terms Gye-na, the song’s popularity particularly causes widespread misery. Thus, although among men derives from its ability to offer Denney is quite right to note that the term Hell them false comfort about their hard lives. The Joseon may conjure its own reality and false cheeriness is placed in a harsh light, exacerbate self-defeating pessimism, most however, when she discovers that the group’s Koreans have long understood (and not a few, leader Turtleman, who gives his name to the like Gye-na, resist) the idea that individuals are chapter, has passed away under far less cheery positioned locally within a hierarchical pecking circumstances that spotlight Korea’s severe order that can treat status, success, and even economic environment. self-esteem as a zero-sum game. The indignities associated with Korea’s socioeconomic pyramid are brought to life for “Bingo” by Turtles Gye-na when she endures an excruciating dinner with the parents of her boyfriend Ji- myeong, who ignore her at the table when she finally meets them for the first time. Gye-na As Steven Denney has noted on the Sino-NK lives in a poor section of Seoul north of the Han blog, the uncritical reproduction of the Hell River; her father is a building watchman and Joseon meme referred to above: her unambitious older sister works at Starbucks. Ji-myeong, on the other hand, lives in far wealthier Gangnam, south of the Han, “risks essentializing the hardships and his father is an academic at a Seoul faced by young South Koreans university. The social distance is intensified when, in fact, there is nothing because her boyfriend, in a well-meaning but particularly unique about, say, the condescending attempt to forestall awkward level of youth unemployment in the questions at the dinner, reveals Gye-na’s family country…comparatively speaking, background beforehand. His parents react to if any country can be said to be this information by snubbing Gye-na, treating going through hellish conditions, it her as if she is virtually invisible.
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